The beginning of a new week can only mean one thing: time for new Weekly Shonen Jump! This is where Jacob investigates the latest and greatest in the magazine, telling you what’s worth your time and what’s not. You can find coverage of other series under the tag Jump Time. Here’s My Hero Academia chapter 304.
Sometimes, there are certain chapters of certain manga that are so monumental, so crammed full of important information, that any single panel could be construed as a spoiler. Heck, even the edited header image for this article might tick off some people if they read enough into it, even though VIZ Media tweeted it out with less censoring when the chapter first released. Still, for those who are up to date, My Hero Academia chapter 304 is a treat.
The idea that One for All contained within it multiple Quirks was one that never gelled quite well with All Might’s initial presentation (why doesn’t he use Float, or Blackwhip?) but was ultimately necessary for the future development of the story and its main protagonist. In execution, it’s also been pretty cool, granting Izuku Midoriya several new abilities to play around with: one such ability, awakened during the final fight with Shigaraki, was Danger Sense.
My Hero Academia chapter 304 introduces us to the originator of that Quirk contained within One for All for the first time: Hikage Shinomori, who was the fourth to inherit the ability and spent most of his life training for the benefit of the next generation. This means that, yes, Deku is back in the dream sequence that punctuated the end of the Joint Training arc: this appears to be something that Kohei Horikoshi quite likes doing as of late, considering that he did a similar thing for Shigaraki. That’s not a bad thing, mind, given that it’s a more engaging way to deliver exposition.
Speaking of exposition, there’s even more important information delivered in My Hero Academia chapter 304 to go over. First of all, it was the fact that both All Might and Deku were Quirkless that allowed them to wield One for All so well: although it wasn’t obvious from the beginning, the ability ‘wound up being meant for those who lacked power to start with.’ Stemming from this, it would now be almost impossible for Deku to transfer the Quirk if he wanted to: the abilities have become too powerful, and Quirkless individuals are getting rarer and rarer. The upshot of this is that Izuku Midoriya might be the final wielder of One for All.
Wow. That’s big. Narration at the beginning of the series made clear that Deku’s future was about ‘becoming the strongest hero,’ but little did we know that he would also be one of the last. Without One for All around, it’d be impossible to subdue All for One, which is what Nana Shimura is alluding to at the very end when she says ‘Can you kill Tomura Shigaraki?’ It has to be him, because no one else might be able to do it.
Not only does this add a sense of urgency to the story, it also gives Deku a symbolic significance beyond simply the ‘next wielder of All for One.’ My Hero Academia has been getting really, really good lately, and chapter 304 just leaves me wanting more. Roll on next week.
You can read My Hero Academia chapter 304 for free via VIZ Media.